Murder in the Merchant City

by Angus McAllister

  ‘Candleriggs Sauna.’

  For a moment Jack was taken aback and said nothing.

  ‘Hello? Candleriggs Sauna.’ The woman’s voice sounded a little impatient. No doubt they got their share of time-wasting callers. Then Jack remembered. They had changed their name. It had been mentioned in the paper, after that last murder.

  ‘Hello,’ he said. ‘Could you tell me who’s on tonight, please?’

  ‘Certainly. Tonight there’s Miranda, Annette and Candy. Do you know them?’

  ‘Yes,’ said Jack, ‘I do. Thanks very much.’

  Yes, he did know them. All of them. Somewhat intimately, in each case. Apart from the name of the place, nothing had changed.

  Annette wasn’t in Paisley, or working in a hospital ward somewhere. She was in Glasgow, a couple of miles away, waiting for clients. The prospect of an evening at home now seemed even less inviting.

  Annette hadn’t been particularly happy to get Edna’s call. Having to work a second night in a row, at the weekend, sharing a shift with Miranda and Candy, wasn’t her idea of a good deal. She’d be lucky to cover the childminding expenses. Luckily, Linda had been able to come over at short notice.

  Edna had asked her to fill in for Claudia, who had disappeared. ‘She hasnae showed up for her last two shifts. I cannae get her on the phone.’

  ‘That’s funny. Have you any idea what’s wrong?’

  ‘Nae idea. The polis have been lookin’ for her. They were here on Tuesday.’

  ‘Is that why they were there?’ Annette hadn’t been working that day, but had heard of the visit. Everybody had. ‘I thought it was about the murders.’

  ‘Maybe it was,’ said Edna. ‘Who knows? They wouldnae tell me what it was about. Now I hear that she’s been moonlightin’, runnin’ her ain visitin’ massage service. I can tell you this, she’ll no’ be workin’ for me again.’

  For Edna, bringing the police to her premises was the greatest sin anyone could commit. It revived unhappy memories from the bad old days as well as making the customers nervous. And the only offence to run it close was cutting Edna out of her share as middle woman. Annette reckoned that she wouldn’t be seeing Claudia again.

  So there she was, back on duty, along with the two most popular girls. Miranda and Candy normally tried to avoid being on the same shift as each other, but Edna had talked them into it, in an attempt to revive the visiting massage trade. This had taken a dip after the Trongate Hotel severed their connection; having a guest hacked to death in his bedroom wasn’t quite the discreet service they’d been looking for.

  The incident had also made an impression upon Miranda. She had been cleared of suspicion after the police checked her pub alibi; quite a few heads, unsurprisingly, had turned in her direction, and her story had been confirmed. But the feelings which had prompted this unusual diversion on her part seemed to have lingered.

  She confided as much to Annette, after Candy had gone off with a customer, leaving Miranda and Annette alone in the lounge together. It was unusual for Miranda to be so forthcoming: evidently she really had been shaken. Annette even warmed to her a little. It made her seem a little more human.

  ‘I don’t want to speak ill of the dead,’ she told Annette, ‘but he was such a horrible man. It made me want to be sick when he touched me. You’ve no idea what he was like.’

  ‘I have. I saw him on TV.’

  ‘Well, that was it. So did I. If I hadn’t recognised him, it wouldn’t have been quite so bad. But there he was, bad-mouthing us in public, calling us names, publishing photographs of our customers. Then he turns up as a customer himself.’

  ‘What a damn hypocrite.’

  ‘That’s just it,’ said Miranda. ‘I’m not sure that he was, not entirely. Otherwise I might have handled it better. But I don’t think he’d done it before. I think he was a virgin. Can you believe it? He must have been at least forty.’

  ‘Thirty-five, it said in the paper.’

  ‘Really? He seemed older.’

  ‘He must have been really repressed,’ said Annette. ‘Maybe that’s why he was so obsessed with the subject, why he carried on that stupid campaign. He must have been bottling up his feelings for years.’

  ‘And I had to be there when he unbottled them,’ said Miranda. She shuddered. ‘It was even worse afterwards. He obviously hated himself, and me, for what had happened. He treated me with total contempt, as if I was something unclean, nothing more than a piece of garbage. He practically flung me out of the room.’

  Annette tried not to smile. This was more like the old Miranda. What had touched her most was the affront to her self-esteem. It was her God-given privilege to be worshipped by all men. What right had this one to take a different line? Maybe she had murdered him after all. A quick flurry with the knife, then off to the pub to wind down.

  Candy returned and another customer took Miranda away. Annette sighed. She’d had only one customer so far. It looked like being a really slow night.

  ‘I see your boyfriend’s here,’ said Candy.

  ‘What do you mean? Who?’

  ‘What’s his name. Jack, isn’t it? I always meant to ask you. What’s his beanstalk like?’

  ‘You should know,’ said Annette. ‘What the hell’s he doing here?’

  ‘I wouldnae have thought it was too hard tae work out.’

  ‘But he knows where I live, for God’s sake. He’s got my phone number.’

  ‘Maybe he fancies a wee change. I’ll take him aff your hands if you like.’

  ‘Like fuck you will!’

  ‘There’s nae pleasin’ some folk.’

  Jack had taken the subway to St Enoch Square and walked along Argyle Street towards Glasgow Cross, wondering if he was doing the right thing. Maybe it would have been better to wait until the following day and phone Annette again. But having come this far, there seemed little point in going back, turning a tedious evening into a totally futile one.

  Soon he found himself in the familiar landscape of the Merchant City, where up-market wine bars and shops and refurbished blocks of flats mingled with run-down buildings and gap sites. The clocks had been put back the previous week, and there wasn’t much daylight left; the gathering gloom seemed to give the neglected parts more prominence, casting a shadow over the areas of bright lights. The neighbourhood seemed to be dragging itself upwards with an enormous handicap, like a man climbing a mountain with a ball and chain fastened to his ankle.

  The Candleriggs Sauna was situated in one of the darker side streets; round the corner were the City Hall, several trendy bars and plenty of people on the streets, but here it was much quieter. It was because of this that Jack had noticed the man standing in a shop doorway, almost directly across from the sauna. He gained the impression that the man was watching him. As Jack passed opposite, he turned his head and looked briefly across at the man, quickly looking away again.

  He saw a slightly-built man of medium height, well-dressed in a nondescript way. Jack couldn’t make out his features clearly, but there was something definitely familiar about him, particularly about the way he was staring at Jack. There was now no doubt about that. Then he remembered where he thought he had seen the man before.

  He made up his mind to mention it to Annette. But in the event he was distracted by other things.

  His impression that nothing had changed except the name of the place was quickly confirmed. The dark, smelly close and stairs, the pawnbroker’s shop, closed for the weekend, the converted top-floor flat, were all familiar. The same woman sat behind the desk, taking his money, noting his name in her book, dispensing the towel and wallet. On his way to the changing room he met Candy coming out of a cabin, then saw Miranda leading a customer from the lounge. Candy greeted him with the usual come-hither smile that she offered all men, both strange and familiar; it was impossible to tell whether she had recognised him or not, though no doubt she had.

  With his first sight of the girls he identified one other change in the place. G
one, along with the old name, were the white medical coats and the pretence of legitimacy, a front they presumably could no longer afford after the slump caused by their recent notoriety. Now the girls had switched to the more conventional uniform of low-cut tops, short skirts and sexy stockings.

  It was a little disconcerting when he entered the lounge and met Annette in this new context. She was dressed less revealingly than Candy, as befitted their respective personalities, but the change was still noticeable. However, this more punter-friendly image was not evident in her manner towards him.

  ‘Hi,’ she said. ‘I didn’t expect to see you here.’

  They were alone in the room, apart from Candy, who had tactfully gone over to play the machine. Jack found himself stuck for words. ‘Well, here I am,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Here you are,’ she said. ‘Would you like a drink?’

  ‘No thanks.’

  There was an embarrassed pause. Then she said, ‘There are three girls on tonight, Miranda, Candy and myself. I think you know us all. Miranda’s working just now, but she shouldn’t be long.’

  ‘Cut it out,’ he said. ‘I came to see you.’

  ‘Well, we’d better go through to the cabin then.’

  They went to the cabin in silence. He sat on the edge of the massage table and faced her. ‘What’s the matter?’ he asked.

  ‘What the hell do you think? You know my number, you know where I live. I don’t hear from you for months, then you show up here.’

  ‘I wanted to see you.’

  ‘You mean you couldn’t get me into bed quickly enough, so you thought you would buy your way there?’

  ‘It wasn’t like that.’

  ‘Or maybe you thought I wasn’t good enough to be your girlfriend, but you could still keep me as your whore. Is that it?’

  ‘No,’ said Jack, ‘that isn’t it. I’ve been meaning to phone you. I finally did, earlier this evening, thinking you’d be off. I couldn’t wait to see you. When I realised you were sitting here, just down the road, it seemed . . . I can see I made a mistake. I’m sorry.’

  ‘You should be.’ She had calmed down a little, but he could see that she was still angry.

  ‘I mean, we’ve met here often enough before. I didn’t think that—’

  ‘That was before. I thought we’d moved beyond that stage. Don’t you realise how cheap this makes me feel?’

  He stood up. ‘You’re right. I shouldn’t have come here. Maybe I should just leave. I’ll phone you tomorrow, if you still want to talk to me.’

  He moved towards the door, but she was standing in his way. He stood facing her, feeling awkward. ‘It’s just that . . . I really missed you,’ he said.

  Suddenly, she grabbed him and began to kiss him frantically. He was pushed backwards, on to the massage table. She seemed intent upon devouring him alive, as if he were a delicacy she had been too long deprived of. After he had recovered from his surprise, he responded with equal passion. At one point his robe and her clothes were discarded, at another he was fitted with a condom, but neither procedure caused much of an interruption.

  Then they were lying side by side, still pressed together in the enforced intimacy of the narrow bed. He had often wondered what the difference would be between their commercial encounters and real lovemaking. Now he knew.

  After a while, he got up and lifted his robe from the floor. All at once he felt awkward again. Hesitantly, his hand went towards the wallet in his pocket.

  ‘Don’t you dare!’

  He lifted both hands in a gesture of surrender, and the robe dropped to the floor again. ‘What about Edna’s share?’ he asked.

  ‘Fuck Edna.’

  ‘No thanks.’

  ‘I’ll deal with her cut. You can make it up to me by taking me out to dinner.’

  ‘It’s a date,’ he said.

  After he had showered and got dressed, he went back to the lounge, where Annette was sitting alone. Candy and Miranda, he assumed, were both working. He realised that, before the night was through, Annette too would have other customers, but he was glad he didn’t have to see them. Nor would he ever, if he could help it. He wouldn’t be coming back here again.

  Annette accompanied him to the front door, then initiated a prolonged kissing session before they finally parted. Jack wondered what the woman behind the desk made of it, but found that he didn’t much care.

  36

  Four Jacks

  So long a list, so few opportunities to shorten it. Almost as intolerable as the wait between killings is having to select the next subject. So many deserve to die. The satisfaction of administering justice is almost spoiled by simultaneously having to grant so many reprieves.

  That’s why it’s so helpful when a subject virtually stands up and offers himself to me. Like that newspaper owner. With such an insult he was daring me to demand satisfaction.

  Now another one has stuck his head above the parapet. Jack Morrison.

  After some preliminary investigation earlier in the year, I had put his file aside for the time being, following upon a period of absence. He wasn’t forgiven, but recent good behaviour had given him low priority.

  Then he comes back and gives me the finger.

  His file is now reactivated. The updated chart is conclusive:

  Date of Visit

  Girls on Shift

  14 Feb

  Annette

  Sylvia

  Miranda

  20 Feb

  Chantelle

  Lee

  Miranda

  24 Feb

  Melanie

  Misty

  Miranda

  4 Nov

  Claudia

  Candy

  Miranda

  Proved beyond all reasonable doubt. No jury could fail to convict. If it was only recognised as a crime.

  My subjects aren’t executed without a fair trial.

  It’s his own fault. Why did he have to come back and provoke me like that, after such a long time? Although maybe the gap wasn’t so long after all. During the long wait between the third and fourth murders, I became careless, I didn’t cover all of her shifts. It wasn’t just negligence, it was frustration at continually having to add to the list without being able to shorten it. That must be the explanation for the gap. While I’ve been neglecting my duty, he’s been slipping through the holes in my net.

  Any doubts about my choice – and they were negligible – have now gone.

  The practical problems remain. How can I ever again get a perfect location like the show flat or the hotel bedroom? Will I have to settle again for a quick assault, a summary execution, denying us the chance to mull over his fate together?

  What do I know about him that might be helpful? He lives and works in the West End, on or near Byres Road. He works as a barman in a busy pub, not the best location in which to isolate a subject.

  But he lives alone.

  37

  Insufficient Evidence

  The customer who was in love with Miranda returned the following Friday, early in the afternoon. Annette was on duty along with Miranda and Justine, having done a swap with Cleo in order to get the evening off; she had been landed with the Saturday evening shift again and that was enough for her in the way of weekend work. Miranda was doing a double shift, still being in demand for the visiting market.

  Annette recognised the man right away. Although she had never been with him – he had never chosen any girl apart from Miranda – she knew his face well enough. He called himself Johnny, which might or might not have been his real name. He seemed middle-class and reasonably intelligent, but immature. He must have been in his mid-thirties at least, but gave the impression of having become emotionally stuck at an earlier age.

  Annette had been given plenty of opportunity to observe him in the past, usually while sitting with him in the lounge while he waited for Miranda to finish with another customer. It was a sojourn which he did not take well. His obsession with Miranda was equalle
d only by his hatred of her other customers. He never said or did anything about it, or made trouble of any kind – otherwise he wouldn’t have been tolerated – but his animosity hung in the air, like an impending thunderstorm, only to be instantly dispelled when his turn came for Miranda’s brief attentions.

  On this occasion he didn’t have to endure his usual frustration; when he entered the lounge, his beloved was sitting beside Annette, waiting for him. Or for someone. She greeted him with the unrestrained delight which she reserved exclusively for every one of her customers.

  ‘Hi there! How are you?’

  ‘I’m fine, Miranda,’ he said shyly. ‘How are you?’

  ‘All the better for seeing you. Would you like a drink?’

  ‘No thanks. I’ll just go through when you’re ready.’

  ‘Of course. Go into Cabin Two and make yourself comfortable. I’ll be with you in a moment.’

  Miranda quickly finished her soft drink and got up to follow him from the room, as if it were another routine visit; her next move would be to check in with Moira at the door, a necessary precaution for security reasons, and to provide Edna with a record of the money the girls owed her.

  ‘Hang on,’ said Annette. ‘Don’t you recognise him?’

  ‘Of course I do. He comes to see me quite often. His name’s on the tip of my tongue.’

  ‘It’s Johnny, to save you looking it up in the book. And he’s the one who came here looking for you on the night of the last murder, while you were out on your hotel visit. We’re supposed to phone the police the moment he shows his face.’

  ‘No!’ said Miranda. ‘I didn’t realise it was him.’ She seemed sincerely appalled at the idea. ‘He’s a little darling. I think he’s quite sweet on me.’

  ‘That’s exactly the point for Christ’s sake!’

  ‘There’s no need to be like that,’ said Miranda huffily. ‘So what are we supposed to do?’

  ‘You keep him occupied as long as you can. I’m sure you know how. I’ll phone the police.’ Luckily Justine was with a customer and Annette didn’t have to deal with her as well.